Her expression is thoughtful,
and her voice has gone soft.
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
Her hand, unspooled across the console, is suddenly beneath mine.
It trembles like a trapped bird; mine shakes like a storm-tossed leaf.
I have never done anything like this, never known anyone like her.
I thread my fingers through hers.
“Maybe I am.”
elise
The next day, after a walk on the beach, after depositing Bambi in the yard, Mati and I sit on the curb in front of my cottage. He’s walked me home again—this is apparently a thing we do now—and we’re laying low to avoid Iris and (though I don’t say so aloud) my mom.
She’s treated me coolly since I got home from Sacramento just before dinner. Whatever, though. After the way she and Audrey ganged up on me, I don’t care if she somehow figured out that I had company yesterday. I like Mati—I like him a lot. He makes me feel understood, and important; he makes me feel like me. My mom can be passive-aggressively aggravated all she wants, so long as she doesn’t try to keep him and me from hanging out.
I’m thinking of our conversations in the car yesterday, about the way Mati held my hand, about inevitability, when he asks, “Are you busy tomorrow?”
“I’ve got my regular beach walk in the morning and I’m babysitting my niece in the evening. Otherwise, no.”
He rescues a smooth, round stone from the grass behind us. “Will you join me for lunch?”
My first thought is, Like, a date? But, no. Mati doesn’t date. He doesn’t have to, because a companion will be chosen for him.
“Okay,” I say, despite my reservations. “Where do you want to go?”
He rubs his thumb over the surface of his stone. He’s been antsy all morning, running his hands through his hair, repeatedly chucking Bambi’s ball into the surf, paging through his ever-present notebook. Like he’s anxious or something.
“How about my family’s cottage?” he says, like Oh hey, this is an idea that’s just now occurring to me.
“Uh…”
“I promise, it is a civilized place.”
“But—”
“But you’re worried about my parents.”
“Okay, yeah. Will they be there?”
“Yes. I told them I want to invite you.”
“And they’re okay with that? With me? In your house?” I thought there were rules about this—about Muslims spending time with, befriending, people of the opposite gender. Yet Mati wants me to sit down to lunch with him and his parents?
“My baba is. It will be nontraditional, you visiting, the four of us dining together, but he’s open to the idea. Honestly, I think he’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“And your mother?”
He looks away, turning the stone over in his palm. “She agreed to cook.”
“Huh.” I hold out my hand and, wordlessly, he places the stone in it. It’s retained his warmth, and I take over rolling it into a series of somersaults. I hate myself for allowing this thought to worm its way into my head, but meeting Mati’s parents seems pointless, like the official commencement of nothing.
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course. Call me later to let me know what you decide.” This is something we’re doing now, too: talking on the phone. Mostly at night, after my mom and his parents have gone to sleep. Drifting off to the sound of his voice … It feels like a gift.
“You should know,” he says, smiling, “my mama is making chicken kebabs and pilau.” He says this as if it’s an enticement, as if he assumes I’m familiar with pilau. He must see cluelessness in my expression though, because he adds, “Rice, cooked with meat and vegetables. A traditional dish in Afghanistan, like … pork chops and applesauce in America.”
I laugh. “I’ve never in my life eaten pork chops and applesauce. Have you?”
“Elise, Muslims don’t eat pork,” he says fondly, like to him, my ignorance is more endearing than obnoxious. “Regardless, it sounds like a terrible combination.” He pushes up off the curb. “I should go. Let me know about tomorrow?”
“I will,” I say, standing, too. I should accept his invitation. It’s rude, stringing him along, but I need to sort through the abundance of questions in my head: what his invitation suggests, who I am to him, who he’s becoming to me, and how I’ll deal with the impossibility of us.
I pass his stone back. He pockets it and turns toward home, but then the front door of our cottage opens and my mom pokes her head out and, for a split second, gravity is nonexistent.
“Elise? I thought I heard voices.” She catches sight of Mati and her eyes narrow. “Oh.”
Oh shit, is more like it.
“I’m on my way in,” I say, shooting her a go away glower.
Instead, she makes her way down the steps and along the cobblestone path, her expression steely. My heart sinks as she pushes the gate open and approaches Mati and me. “Aren’t introductions in order?” she says in a tone that’s the opposite of amiable.
“Mom,” I say, “this is Mati.”
He towers over her, and it’s satisfying to watch her crane her neck to look up at him. Awe skips across her face (who can blame her—he’s strikingly handsome), followed closely by displeasure. “Jocelyn Parker,” she says without inflection.
“I’m happy to meet you. Elise tells me you’re a writer.”
She purses her lips. “A novelist.”
One of Mati’s eyebrows lifts, just enough to reveal his discomfort. He pushes his hands into his pockets. “I was on my way home. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Elise?”
I nod, and he turns to go, shoulders bunched up, head hanging low. My mom’s watching his retreat with her hands on her hips in this repulsively superior way that pulverizes my nerves. This isn’t a game, but I’m not about to let her think she’s notched a point on the mental scorecard she’s apparently keeping.
“Mati,” I call, just before he reaches the corner. “Hang on!”
He stops and pivots. His eyes widen with surprise when he sees me jogging toward him. I capture his gaze and hold it, thinking don’t freak out. I stop when we’re a breath apart. And then I lean into him, winding my arms around his middle, pressing my cheek to his chest.
I hear his rapidly pounding heart. I feel tension contracting his muscles, and heat soaking through his T-shirt. For a half second he’s motionless, rigid, and then he just … melts. He shifts his feet and releases a soft sigh and wraps his arms around me. He holds me close, so close, squeezing me against the length of his body like he’s wanted to hug me for days … weeks … lifetimes.
It lasts only a moment, but it’s the best moment.
I ease back and tip my chin so I can see his face—he’s wide-eyed, flushed. He looks traumatized. I shuffled back, stammering, “I shouldn’t have—that was … I’m so sorry.”
He reaches out, watching his hand as if it were an entity separate from the rest of him. Gently, he brushes his fingertips across my cheek. “Don’t be sorry. Tomorrow morning?”
I smile. “Tomorrow morning.”
He rounds the corner, and I’m left to make a dead-man-walking journey back to where my mom still stands, feet rooted to the sidewalk.
“You’re making a mistake, Elise,” she says, tailing me through the gate and into the yard. Bambi bounds over and gives my hand a slobbery kiss.
“You’re wrong.”
“I don’t want you to see him again.”
I whirl around, surprised and, at the same time, not. “When did you start telling me who I can see?”
“When you started thinking with your hormones instead of your head. Was he with you yesterday?”
“Mom—”
“He was, wasn’t he? How dare you take him to Nicky.”
God, her nerve infuriates me. “Why do you care? It’s not like you ever visit him.”
Her eyes flash, and her fingers flex. For an instant, I think she’s going to strike me, and I take a step back. “It’s blasphemous,” she seethes, “the way you’re inviting that boy into your life. Our lives. Your brother would be disappointed.”
“No he wouldn’t. Nicky accepted differences—embraced differences.”